Ships
Spread across four separate classes, gameplay in Duality revolves around spacecraft and ships, unless the whole campaign occurs in one small location. Hundreds of thousands of ships exist, and thousands are built every day, destroyed in massive wars, scrapped, recycled, and rebuilt. The players may never own a ship at all, may barely afford to keep their junky shuttle running, may cruise around in an expensive corvette, or may become the first private owners of a Class 4 supercapital ship; no matter the case, they need to know what their option are. Ships are all detailed below, by class and subclass. Class 1 Class 1 ships makes up the vast, vast majority of ships in existence. Comprised of shuttles and fighters, at some point in their life nearly every pony in the galaxy will fly on one, own one, or at least work with them. Cheap and relatively fast, they serve the purpose of standard personal vehicles, giving ponies the tools they need for basic life in a space-age galaxy. Shuttles Higher cargo space and passenger capacity than fighters, but far weaker in combat, to the point of being nearly defenseless. Often slow, but also cheaper. Most ponies who get any kind of ship in their life will get a simple shuttle, and they can be found everywhere, in all makes and models. ---- Fighters Combat ready, with very little room for cargo or passengers, fighters serve as the main source of combat strength of any fighting force. Fitting a few small shields and turrets, they can be destroyed in a single hit by larger weapons, but their speed makes them very difficult to hit. ---- Class 2 Class 2 ships include the vast numbers of frigates that form the backbone of commerce in the galaxy, a fair number of exotic and expensive corvettes, and an alarming number of destroyers, armed to the teeth. Successful individuals will sometimes own their own Class 2, but often they're owned by corporations and rented to individuals or used solely for work. Cargo Frigates Highest cargo space of all class 2 ships, but also the least useful in general, lacking the power, speed, or combat potential to make them effective on their own. Frequently only sporting small-size fittings, sometimes they are even used exclusively within the safety of a single system. Rarely, a cargo frigate hull will be entirely refit for a very different purpose: Jump ships, capable of punching holes through hyperspace and projecting temporary stargates for allied ships to travel through. These ships are much more expensive, and due to the infrastructure required often serve only this purpose, but in complex battles they can lend the edge by allowing a fleet to arrive in a completely unexpected location. ---- Command Frigates Often similar in construction to cargo ships, command frigates have little in the way of combat potential of their own, but have their cargo bay re-fitted to maximize fighter bay potential and launch speed. Typically fitting only a few small turrets and maybe a medium shield, their combat power is very high only with the right class 1 ships docked, and are vital to the success of any large-scale combat engagement. ---- Mining Frigates Second highest cargo space, on average, of all class 2 ships. Typically either has a large number of small turret hardpoints or a few medium turrets, rarely much in terms of shields. Equipped with mining lasers and tractor beams, as well as fairly durable hulls to reduce the danger of accidental collisions, these ships tend to be cheap and capable of quickly paying for themselves. ---- Destroyers Destroyers fit lots of guns and shields, but tend to have little in the way of cargo space of any kind. Designed for combat with class 2 and up, they have the greatest firepower for their size of all ships. Even despite impressive firepower and defense, if caught without class 1 support these ships can often be taken down by a small group of fighters, simply because of their slow speed. ---- Corvettes The smallest of all class 2 ships, corvettes are the most common privately owned class 2 ships. Frequently re-fitted for speed, luxury, and class, corvettes also serve as research vessels, exploration ships, and carrier combat support do to their still-respectable potential for combat fittings. ---- Class 3 Class 3 ships include the huge cargo freighters ferrying products across the galaxy, carriers refitted for long-term living for hundreds of ponies and filled with fighters for massive combat engagements, and dreadnoughts with guns bigger than most shuttles, ready to annihilate space stations in seconds. Class 3 ships are, with few exceptions, the biggest ships any pony has ever seen, and they're usually the biggest class of ship that most have even heard of. With pricetags in the tens to hundreds of millions of credits, few ever dream to own such a vessel on their own, and being a pilot or captain of such a ship, even the most mundane, is an honor. Freighters Designed to stay away from combat whenever possible, these ships are designed to easily store huge amounts of cargo, or that space is refitted for the comfort of passengers when these ships are used as transports. From deploying entire platoons of troops into a planet-side battle, to hauling rare ore across the galaxy, these ships aren't built for combat, but in terms of capacity, they cannot be beat. ---- Carriers Often similar in construction to freighters, these ships are specially designed to fit as many class 1, and sometimes even class 2, ships as possible, with atmospheric containment fields rather than solid doors to alloy for extremely fast deployment. Frequently sporting almost no hull-mounted weapons of their own, these ships are, nonetheless, a terror to any enemy fleet, due to the combat power contained within. Civilian carriers are sometimes used by mining corps, universities, and as mobile bases for deep-space research teams. ---- Dreadnoughts Armed with more guns that their enemies would ever have time to count, some firing with enough power to rival focused nuclear weapons, these ships are built to destroy anything and everything that stand in their way. While fighters sometimes struggle to pierce the thick armour of larger ships, dreadnoughts have no trouble at all, and in an ironic sense, many argue that dreadnoughts only need exist because of other dreadnoughts, since their tracking speed is often too slow to hit even destroyers.